Dr. Josephine Mallek was the leader of pioneers

Dr. Josephine Mallek with a patient during her years at St. Paul’s. — phc archive photosArchive photo
/ Providence Health Care

Dr. Josephine Mallek, 87, began practicing medicine in Vancouver in 1941. She recalls the days before antibiotics when her patients died of infections we no longer think about.ARLEN REDEKOP
/ PROVINCE

Dr. Josephine Mallek made sure that women who came after her weren’t as isolated as she first was.TBA
/ PROVINCE

prv121099penicillin03: Dec. 0, 1999 — VANCOUVER, B. C. — Dr. Josephine Mallek, age 87, began practicing medicine in Vancouver in 1941. She recalls the days before antibiotics when her patients died of infections we no longer think about. The story is a historical look at penicillin and how it changed medicine since it’s introduction in the 1940s. ARLEN REDEKOP / PROVINCE [PNG Merlin Archive]ARLEN REDEKOP
/ PROVINCE

VANCOUVER, B.C., May 24, 2012 — Dr. Josephine Mallek and her husband, Dr. Howard Mallek, circa 1939. Josephine Mallek was the first female physician to work at St. Paul’s Hospital, where she was hired in 1946. For use with story by Elaine O’Connor in series about St. Paul’s.
---- — Submitted photoSubmitted photo
/ for The Province

prv121099penicillin01: Dec. 0, 1999 — VANCOUVER, B. C. — Dr. Josephine Mallek, age 87, began practicing medicine in Vancouver in 1941. She recalls the days before antibiotics when her patients died of infections we no longer think about. The story is a historical look at penicillin and how it changed medicine since it’s introduction in the 1940s. ARLEN REDEKOP / PROVINCE [PNG Merlin Archive]ARLEN REDEKOP
/ PROVINCE

prv121099penicillin02: Dec. 0, 1999 — VANCOUVER, B. C. — Dr. Josephine Mallek, age 87, began practicing medicine in Vancouver in 1941. She recalls the days before antibiotics when her patients died of infections we no longer think about. The story is a historical look at penicillin and how it changed medicine since it’s introduction in the 1940s. ARLEN REDEKOP / PROVINCE [PNG Merlin Archive]ARLEN REDEKOP
/ PROVINCE

As the first female physician hired by St. Paul’s in 1946, Dr. Josephine Mallek would have been hard-pressed to find women doctors on staff to mentor her.

Yet over the years, the endocrinologist mentored dozens of women and created a network to support colleagues once as isolated as she was.

“They were pioneers,” said Dr. Mallek’s daughter, Patsy Royer, of the female physicians who gathered at her mother’s salons.

“When I was really small, there weren’t 50 women there. That was for the whole Lower Mainland,” Royer, a retired Ottawa teacher, told The Province. “Now more than 50 per cent of medical schools are women.”

Dr. Doris Kavanagh-Gray, who was hired after Mallek, recalls she was always fielding inquiries from University of B.C. students wanting advice on going into medicine.

“She was a fantastic woman,” Dr. Kavanagh-Gray recalled. “She was humorous, down-to-earth, well-trained and very intelligent. She was always very anxious to help.”

One of the UBC medical students Mallek mentored, Dr. Margaret Cox, recalled in an article that Mallek “showed how a woman physician could both practise and raise a family and at the same time extend wisdom and humour to others.”

Mallek wasn’t the only woman in her family with the urge to help others through medicine.

In the 1890s, her own mother, who was living in Russia, dreamt of becoming a doctor, but women were barred from medical school. So she hopped on a train and entered medical school in Montpellier, France. France proved no more welcoming to female Jewish doctors and she later left for Quebec, where her obstetrics degree would be honoured.

In Montreal, she met Mallek’s father, an Austrian immigrant who came from New York to study at Bishop’s. He took French lessons from her and they married in 1902. Mallek was born in 1912, the youngest of two girls.

By age eight, Mallek was laying out dressings at her father’s practice. After skipping grades, she graduated high school at 16 and won a scholarship to McGill’s medical school, graduating fourth in her class.

“My mom was very bright. She was amazing,” Royer recalled. “Even in the last months of her life, people were still calling her to come play bridge and she would go and play and win. She was extremely cool.”

At medical school. Mallek met her husband, Dr. Howard Mallek, a Victoria native studying ophthalmology who spent summers interning at St. Paul’s. During his studies, he fell ill with tuberculosis. While he recovered, she earned her master’s degree, studying endocrinology and then-cutting-edge cortisone hormones.

Upon graduation, they lived in London, England, where Mallek worked for the National Research Council in endocrinology and her husband did a fellowship. During the Second World War, they returned to Canada on the last unescorted convoy; of two ships, only theirs survived the voyage.

They set up practice in Vancouver and were lured to St. Paul’s, the administration eager to hire Mallek for her experience with cortisone.

The couple had two children. Their son, David, followed his parents into medicine, earning a medical degree in ophthalmology after working in laboratories at St. Paul’s as an undergraduate, even assisting Dr. Harold Rice with his heart and lung bypass machine. Their daughter remembers afternoons as a child eating caramels with the nuns as her mother did rounds, and how medicine was a pervasive dinner topic.

“[We’d] have exciting discussions about autopsies and dissected organs,” Royer recalled, noting some dinner guests turned green. “In our house, you talked about medicine. My mother was forever telling us about interesting patients and discoveries. This was what she loved.”

And she loved people.

“She had a wonderful bedside manner,” her daughter recalled. “In her office, patients knew they would always have to wait because even if it was just a booster shot, there was going to be 15 minutes of chit chat, but they never complained.”

David recalled his mother was also generous with staff.

“She taught the RNs, the lab techs and the new doctors. Every year the house staff was welcomed with a dinner at our house. She threw a medical staff party every year and, separately, one for her referring doctors in the community,” he remembered.

The pair retired in the late 1980s, after Mallek had spent 51 years in medicine. At age 78, she became president of the Vancouver Medical Association, battling the government in a doctors’ fee dispute and advocating for seniors’ health.

Mallek, like her husband, who died in 1995, passed away at St. Paul’s, following a stroke in 2004 at 92.

“I have great admiration for the hospital for the way they treated my parents,” Royer said. “It was great, dignified care.”

Coquitlam RCMP say believe speed was a contributing factor in the accident which occurred around 1 a...

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.